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New Mexico has a stormy gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn't be the case.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in 1990 to negotiate a compact with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the working group arrived at an accord with two prominent local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.

When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Amerindian wagering in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the contract with the Native bands, anti-gambling groups were able to hold the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, thereby costing the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.

It took the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full contract between the State of New Mexico and its Indian bands. A decade had been lost for gaming in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.

The not for profit Bingo industry has grown since 1999. In that year, New Mexico charity game owners brought in just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.

Bingo is certainly beloved in New Mexico. All types of operators look for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting over gaming as an important issue like they did back in the 1990's. That is most likely hopeful thinking.